Wilson Reading

I asked one of my colleagues, Patti Mastropolo, to share with you her curriculum at our school. She uses the Wilson Reading Program.

•Hello, my name is Patricia Mastropolo. I have been teaching at
Greenway Middle School for 4 years. I am originally from Rutherford, New Jersey
and started my teaching career in the Bronx, NY. I graduated Arizona State
University and completed a Master's in Education from Walden University. I have
three dogs, Igby (chihuahua) Sonny (French Bulldog) and Bella (Carolina dog).
Some of my interests are: traveling, reading, volunteering, fashion/beauty and
spending time with friends and my family!

•The Wilson Reading Program is extremely structured and
instructed in small settings. Students will study the structure and science of
the English Language to develop their own reading skills.

The Wilson Reading Program addresses the areas of:

1. The sound and symbol relationships of the English alphabet

2. Decoding

3. Spelling

4. Vocabulary Development

5. Sight Word Instruction

6. Comprehension

7. Fluency

The reading lessons are designed systematically, directly, and
employ the use of multiple senses. The lessons progress in difficulty as each
reading level is achieved.

Vocabulary is very important and we follow a certain formula in our Wilson
class.

Step 1: Read and write vocabulary word.

Step 2: Find meaning/define.

Step 3: Make a well-structured sentence using the vocabulary
word.

Step 4: Draw a picture of the word or a picture of the
vocabulary word used in a sentence.

The Wilson Reading System is a research-based reading and
writing program designed for students (grades 2-12 and adults) who have
difficulty with decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling). It is a complete
curriculum that has 12 steps, beginning with phoneme segmentation. Its main
goal is to teach students language and word structure through a carefully
planned program. The program was developed in Massachusetts in the 1980s by Barbara A. Wilson,
based on knowledge gained from working with adults with dyslexia using
Orton-Gillingham methodology at Massachusetts General Hospital's Language
Disorders Unit, and with students in an after-school reading clinic founded
with her husband, Ed Wilson. The Wilson Reading System, published in 1989, is
now commonly used in various settingsthroughout the United States and several
other countries.